01 May 2010 11:30 PM

This is the most important article I’ve ever written – and loyal Conservative voters will hate me for it

This is Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column

Many of you are going to hate me for what I am about to say. I regret this. Perhaps the fact that I am going to do it anyway will convince some of you that I am deadly serious, and prefer unpopularity to doing the wrong thing.

It is one of the most important and urgent tasks I have ever undertaken. I warned, 13 years ago, against New Labour. I warned, seven years ago, against the Iraq War. I was right (as I usually am – full list on application). But in those cases I might as well have tried to halt a tsunami with a feather duster. The country had gone into a sort of craze, and believed what it wanted to believe.

This time, I think and hope that what I say might actually have some effect on an unusually close Election. And it is this. Please do not vote Tory. It will have the opposite result to the one you intend. I don’t care who else you vote for (apart from the BNP, which no decent person can support). But I beg and plead with you not to fall for the shimmering, greasy, cynical fraud which is the Cameron project. You will hate yourself for it in time if you do.

The obvious thing is not necessarily the right one. A little knowledge can save us from making bad mistakes. If you feed a big meal to a starving man, which might seem the kind thing to do, you are likely to kill him. Aeroplanes take off into the wind, not, as might seem more sen­sible, with the wind behind them. If your car engine overheats, you should turn the heater up, not down.

It’s the same here. You may want to ‘Get Gordon Brown out’. So do I. And he’s done for anyway. But do you really want to put in a man who agrees with Gordon Brown on almost every major issue, and is so confident of his liberalism that he doesn’t even try to keep it secret? No muttered remarks in the car about ‘bigotry’ for him. He has said openly that he regards the conservative-minded people of this country as ‘fruitcakes and closet racists’ – and nobody made him apologise for it afterwards. If you now endorse the Cameron Tory Party, you will destroy all real hope of change for the better.

I assume here that my readers mostly agree with me about what this country needs. It needs its independence back, so it can make its own laws and control its own coasts and territorial seas, its armed forces, its foreign policy – like a proper nation.

It needs to regain control of its borders and end the mass immigration which is neither necessary nor good. It needs to stop the destruction of the married family and the undermining of adult authority. It needs to use the law to restrain the grotesque abuse of alcohol and the dangerous spread of drugs. It needs to restore the idea that crime and disorder should be prevented by a police force patrolling on foot – and where that fails, the criminals should be punished in austere and ­disciplined prisons. It needs schools which teach proper subjects in orderly and peaceful classrooms. It needs to shrink and reform a grotesque, unjust welfare state which rewards sloth and neglects the truly poor.

It needs – urgently – to defeat the politically correct fundamentalist zealots, who sneer ‘Bigot!’ at anyone who dares defend the reasonable beliefs and opinions which were normal a generation ago. Some of you may also agree with me that it needs to reassert its debt and its allegiance to the Christian religion, on which our unique civilisation of orderly freedom is based.

David Cameron pretends skilfully to agree with these positions because he knows that is what you think. But he does not really agree with you or me. He is himself deeply politically correct (he has just sacked a parliamentary candidate for having the ‘wrong’ opinions about homo­sexuality, a fact a grovelling media have not publicised).

His supposed ‘Euroscepticism’ is bluster which collapses when it comes into contact with reality, as over the Lisbon Treaty. On Thursday night he ‘guaranteed’ he wouldn’t enter the Euro. He once also ‘guaranteed’ a referendum on Lisbon, a commitment he slithered out of as soon as it became difficult. These ‘guarantees’ fly from his lips whenever he needs to please a crowd, but they are less valuable than Greek Junk Bonds.

His alleged support for marriage (dragged out of him under pressure) is a token and a gimmick, as convincing and genuine as a supermarket price-cut. His pose as the foe of immigration is profoundly dishonest. He knows that, as long as we stay inside the EU, much immigration to this country is beyond his power to control.

Readers of this column over the past few years will have seen the many detailed instances of Mr Cameron’s duplicity that I have provided. And, because there is not space for them all here, I have compiled a full charge sheet against Mr Cameron and his party, in which I show his true aims and opinions, and those of his colleagues. It can be found above. He is truly what he once said he was – the Heir to Blair.

If he wins, he will – as the first Tory leader to win an Election in 18 years – have the power to crush all his critics in the Tory Party. He will be able to say that political correctness, green zealotry, a pro-EU position and a willingness to spend as much as Labour on the NHS have won the day. He will claim (falsely) that ‘Right-wing’ policies lost the last three Elections. Those Tory MPs who agree with you and me will be cowed and silenced for good. The power will lie with the A-list smart set, modish, rich metropolitan liberals hungry for office at all costs who would have been (and who in the case of one of the older ones actually was) in New Labour 13 years ago.

And then where will you have to turn for help as the PC, pro-EU bulldozer trundles across our landscape destroying what is good and familiar and replacing it with a country whose inhabi­tants increasingly cannot recognise it as their own? The Liberal Democrats? They agree with David. The Labour Party under exciting, new, Blairite Mr Miliband, heir to a Marxist dynasty?

He agrees with David, too. You will look from bench to bench in the House of Commons and see nothing but the people whose ideas have wrecked a great country in half a century, and who still won’t admit they’re wrong. This system is only propped up by state funding and dodgy millionaires. The surge to the Liberal Democrats – because of who they are not rather than because of what they are – shows a great hunger for something genuinely different. The expenses scandal has broken many old allegiances for good. That process would actually be ended by the election of a Tory government, committed to the policies of New Labour and headed by a man who happens to be one of the greediest expense claimers of all, and who made you pay the mortgage interest on a large country house he didn’t really need.

We have the power to cast aside the discredited parties and politicians who have so utterly let us down and to make new ones which actually speak for us, and which do not despise us as fruitcakes or bigots. Five years from now we could throw the liberal elite into the sea, if we tried. But the first stage in that rebellion must be the failure of David Cameron to rescue the wretched anti-British Blair project and wrap it in a blue dress.

If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click on Comments and scroll down.

Share this article:

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Why does Mr Hitchen become illogical and lose all sense of critical appraisal when the BNP are mentioned? Is this the influence of the National Union of Journalists or has he just been brainwashed with political correctness like so much of the population.
Look at the BNP website and read the policies for yourself. In this age of equality why do the the BNP so often find themselves discriminated against by people who should know better?

Like the PMs wife in The Ghost I believe PH was recruited to be a sleeping left wing agent during his days working behind the iron curtain.

His plan to split the right wing vote further with the supposed creating of yet another right wing party would see left wing governments forever. That's obvious to anyone with half a brain cell.

He has taken no steps whatsoever to look into the creation of a new party - using his own money or requesting it from backers. No market research whatsoever. And he has no support at all from any other existing political figures for this 'new party'.

He refuses to help UKIP - for no sensible reason whatsoever - (just because Farage his odd views on drugs, big deal), even though they agree with 95% of what he says.

He also never expresses any free market style views, which would be a basic foundation of anyone who was truly on the 'right'.

When it's all finally over for this country and we have been brought down by leftwing communists and Peter Hitchens finally reveals himself to be the agent he always was - he will be able to say hand on heart that he never supported any of the existing pro-british parties on the right - he merely foisted division and confusion on their supporters and that he did a good good.

His other 'right-wing' conservative views expressed every week through the MOS page are just a cover to allow him to do his real dirty work.

Any right thinking, common sense pro-british voters should ignore his advice and vote with their concience for whichever party on the right they feel best suits their own views.

I used to think Peter Hitchens was the answer - but now I see him for what I believe him to be, a very big part of the problem.

please ignore Peter Hitchens - he is a left wing agent - and I suspect that very soon he will be sacked by the MoS.

There always seemed to me to be something inherently duplicitous about the dynamics of the Blair/Labour relationship ....in fact I was soundly slapped by a Labour Party Worker on election night '97 , for remarking ironically that I had no idea why they were so excited as they had just succeeded in electing another Tory.... David Cameron may be ' son of Blair' but his starting point as Leader of a Conservative Party is by definition, fundamentally more honest .

It is a truism, but in general we get the government we deserve.... It may be that following the years of disillusion under New Labour both the British & Mr Cameron are on the same learning curve ......I am cautiously optimistic

UKIP demands apology from Cameron
The UK Independence Party is calling for David Cameron to apologise after he claimed its members were "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly"
In a later interview during a visit to Leeds, the Tory leader defended his remarks and said he did not think he had not spoken out of turn.
"I was making a general point that I think UKIP has a problem in that they are the sort of 'stop the world, I want to get off' party," he said.
"I don't think they've got anything to say to a modern country and I was being asked particularly about something they're doing at the moment but, no, I think [it was] a very sensible thing to say."

‘He has said openly that he regards the conservative-minded people of this country as ‘fruitcakes and closet racists’’

That is not literally true – he was specifically referring to UKIP when he said that, which is sort of ironic, as Mr. Hitchens has his own pet pejorative capsule description of UKIP.

But that comment is still relevant in the context Mr Hitchens uses it; UKIP are indeed genuine conservatives.

That UKIP are genuine conservatives is evidenced by the disproportionate amount of vitriol they attract on the blogosphere (we all know who the chief ‘Haters’ are) and the fact that they are sneered at and sidelined even by the ‘Tory’ press. But we carry on, because we don’t have a choice.

I still hold with my new found agreement with the Hitchen’s Principle – vote anyone but Tory. Mervyn King (according to David Hale) had it right, I am sure.

I am not sure that this IS the most important article you have written Mr Hitchens – you have done some ace ‘State of the Nation’ pieces elsewhere.

Peter Hitchens says: "Please do not vote Tory. It will have the opposite result to the one you intend. I don’t care who else you vote for (apart from the BNP, which no decent person can support)."

You say don't vote BNP, presumably because of its association with Nazis, which it denies by portraying its leader next to pictures of Winston Churchill.

Why do you not similarly say "don't vote Labour" because of its association with Stalin and communism? I cannot hear their denials. Have any of the ex-communists in the present government denounced the traitors from their Party who helped Stalin and the Soviet Union?

It seems you are giving the Party which has produced more traitors working for our enemies than any other a bit of an easy ride, especially as your views seem to be at odds with most of Labour’s policies and to coincide with most of the BNP’s.

Conributor Michael Williamson, whom I thank for his kind reply, writes:
"...Humpty Dumpty is 'not said to have done'; he did say it in as much as a fictional character can be said to say anything or, if you prefer, Lewis Carroll said it for him:"

You really mustn't believe everything you read, sir, and especially not when reading what is generally called "fiction". It's all very well for Lewis Carroll to tell us what Humpty Dumpty is supposed to have said but I'm sceptical. I'd like to hear from Mr Dumpty himself; who; I think, has been unjustly maligned by some people.

No Public Sector worker pays sufficient taxes to pay their own salary. Self evident truism. Couple that with Mervyn King's comments and you will see that the problem only has a year or so to run. It doesn't really matter who gets in. The only forward plan Mr Hitchens needs to think about, because he along with the rest of us can do nothing about the economy, is who is going to lead the new centre-right party and what should that party be called.

My objection to Peter Hitchens is that he is so negative. Negative criticism is so easy. What we appreciate is constructive argument but we never get that from him. If we follow him and do not vote Conservative, who does he want us to vote for ? Does he not realise that whoever gets in will be up against the inertia of the civil service ?
Why is he always so venomously chippy ? Was his father slighted by an Etonian ?

More words from a fool, that's me. Ever since I can remember we are being told this is the biggest crisis since WW2 and we need to do something drastic, yet the decade when Government didn't get drastic was the 90s and after a slow start it was a rather successful decade. Why? Because we got government with a small c, both from Major and Blair. Of course things need fixing but by and large they are not going to fixed quickly or by panicky actions but rather by taking a slow measured approach, that is not ideologically driven. New Labour did well in the early years because it was not ideological but once 911 happened and Tony Blair went nutty, things started to go wrong. My fear if Cameron gets in is that he is desparate to prove he is a serious politician and will have to make big decisions - ie savage public spending cuts, none of which will affect him or any of his friends - which will show he doesn't shirk from the big decision. We need long term, well thought out solutions to our problems not radical, idelogically driven solutions.

Can you please explain why no decent person can support the BNP? What is "indecent" about them, precisely? Why are they off' limits? As far as I can see, they are the only party that is prepared to deal with the REAL problems the UK faces. Like it or not, they are the only party that REALLY believe in the things you claim to believe in and can fix the problems you claim to want fixed! THERE IS NO ONE ELSE!!!!

"But I did not promise a referendum come what may because once the Lisbon Treaty is the law, there's nothing anyone can do about it"
Obviously neither the politicians or the the so called journalists have never even glanced at the Lisbon treaty. It staes that any member country can withdraw on 24 hours notice. Should have gone to specsavers.

Both Oliver Kamm and John Rentoul link and quote from your Mail on Sunday column. Oliver Kamm writes on his blog that "i take issue with the terms Hitchens uses, but he's essentially right. The Conservative Party doesn't represent the sentiments that it once did, and the change is attributable to David Cameron's leadership. Hitchens's views would once have been mainstream Conservatism yet are now better represented by Ukip."

"This is a very good country to live in. It's not that bad, really, seriously, it's not that bad. The sky isn't falling, it's not the end of the world. I don't think this country needs radical, what we need is competent and by and large under Labour we got that, just as by and large under Major we got it as well. Unfortunately under Thatcher we got radical and look at the mess that caused.
If we do need to cut Public Spending, a quick way would be to bring the troops home from Afghanistan. Save a fortune, and be popular.".

I suppose, to misquote Abraham Lincoln, this proves that you can fool most of the people all of the time. If the current Lanbour government and that of John Major are to be considered competent, what are you standards for incompetence? You have somehow missed the fact that this country is bankrupt, shored up by loans and the printing of money which will soon lead to inflation, you have no idea what's coming.

'If we do need to cut public spending'. No we don't need to cut it, we need to take a chain saw to it and dismember it once and for all. Whilst bringing the troops back from Afghanistan is a consummation devoutly to be wished, the saving will be a drop in the ocean compared to what will be required by the IMF when we approach them with our begging bowl. I'd take off your rose tinted spectacles if I were you and take a long hard look around you, you won't like it but it's real enough.

"It is no good, I suggest, trying to argue -as Humpty Dumpty is once said to have done - that such adjectives can mean whatever their authors may want them to mean.".

Firstly my dear sir, Humpty Dumpty is 'not said to have done'; he did say it in as much as a fictional character can be said to say anything or, if you prefer, Lewis Carroll said it for him:

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.".

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. "They've a temper, some of them -- particularly verbs: they're the proudest -- adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs -- however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!".

You have, in the past, taken me to task when I complained about nouns being used as verbs and adjectives being used as nouns but, if this is allowed to go unchallenged, this is what happens - you can no longer be sure what anyone is talking about even if, though not in this case, you believe you understand the meaning. English is probably the most elastic spoken language but even elastic can break if stretched too far.

The thing that matters most at this election is to vote out this incompetent Government which has trashed the economy and saddled us with debt. If insufficient numbers vote Conservative at the next election, then what are we going to get? The most likely outcome other than a Conservative Government with or without a working majority would be a Lib Lab coalition.

This result might see a realignment of Conservative values whilst in opposition, along the lines you want, but then again it might not as nothing is certain. What is almost guaranteed is that the new Lib-Lab coalition will introduce PR in time for the next election. This will mean a permanent Lib-Lab coalition with neither the old Conservative party nor the newly formed, Peter Hitchens approved Conservative party ever gaining power and all the policies which you deplore becoming a permanent feature of British political life.
What will you have gained by this?? Nothing!! This is madness.

What seems to have passed you by is that in order to make Labour more agreeable to the electorate, Tony Blair, moved it towards the centre/right by ditching old Labour policies such as Clause 4 and embracing more capitalist friendly policies thus stealing much of the traditional Tory ground and at the same time, spiking the guns of his detractors who could no longer justify criticising his party’s former extreme left wing policies. He made his party electable which is the first requisite to gaining power.

After losing three elections in a row, it was obvious that the Conservative party needed to get back some of its support and at the same time recognise that society has changed in mores and attitudes. If politics is the art of the possible then parties must adapt or die if they wish to remain a political force to be reckoned with. To a degree this will entail leaving our comfort zone in attitudes such as gay rights for example. Society has changed whether we like it or not and I share many of your opinions and deplore some of these changes. However, politics is about accommodation and compromise in order to gain sufficient support to govern and keep somewhere near to the policies on which the party was elected including those which are essential for the well being of the country and thus prevent and repeal policies which are detrimental to the common good.

I shall be voting for the Conservatives because they are closest of all the parties to my opinions and offer the better chance of reversing our economic decline. I would have thought a man of your undoubted intelligence would see that the management of economy is the major issue at this election if we are to avoid bankruptcy, and not the realignment of the Tory party. Instead of indulging the cynicism of negativity and encouraging others to do likewise, you should do your civic duty and vote.

"May be the prospect of proportional representation would be not such a bad idea. I've always been against it, but it seems to me to provide the only prospect of a way by which a new political force could emerge, and quickly, to challenge the three dead parties.

Posted by: Edward Doyle | 02 May 2010 at 02:40 PM"

Nay, nay and thrice nay!

PR may allow minor parties to get a foothold - as with UKIP, Greens and BNP in EU elections, but it will ensure that we will never have a government of conviction ever again - just a perpetual hung parliament, behind the scenes horse trading and the party which comes third always calling the shots.

I'd have thought it was obvious what the best outcome of this election. A hung parliament with the LIberals demanding PR for their support preferably with the Tories.
If (proper) PR is implemented I'd think it only a matter of time until all the major parties fragment and that a (small c) conservative party which supports the beliefs of the majority of the white working class and many disillusioned ex-Tories (hard on crime, based on a patriotic English Christian society, anti multiculturalism and political correctness) arises and assumes power.
For the first time in modern times (ever?) England (Scotland and eventually Wales would probably drift away) could then be freed from the undemocratic and insidious influence of the the establishment (whether right or liberal left).

The Tory party is clearly un-conservative; it has been in the grip of neo-liberals for years. Peter Hitchens almost alone and bravely denounces the sham Tory party. That Peter Hitchens is a conservative is unquestionable for anyone who has read his books and newspaper column or had the privilege of hearing him debate; his motives for wanting to see the Tory party beaten at the forthcoming election are genuine. If you really care about your country this is the last chance you will have for years to regain representation of conservative values in parliament.

Peter Hitchens' only request is that his supporters do not vote Tory. My own strategy will be to vote for the Liberal Democrats, a party that I detest, because there is a good chance that they may oust the sitting Tory MP. Voting for the party that have the best chance of beating the Tories in your own constituency is a better guarantee of ensuring the Tories do not win than not voting.

All three of the main political parties espouse left/liberal policies. It will have little effect on our continuing decay which ever way you choose to vote, except that if you sack the opposition, as Mr Hitchens has been repeating, then the coast is clear for a real conservative party to form, a party that should be rooted in the noble traditions first espoused by Edmund Burke.

I for one do not hate Peter Hitchens for writing this article. And I am going to take his advice and not vote Conservative in a general election for the first time in the 20 years in which I have been old enough to vote. There is no need for me to say why I, as a Conservative won't be voting Conservative, Mr Hitchens has made the case and far more eloquently than I could. I would just like to take this opportunity to say thank you to Mr Hitchens - probably the most remarkable and shrewd social commentator this country has had since George Orwell. But Mr Hitchens, like many far-sighted people, is a man before his time - hopefully by the time his critics finally realise he's talking sense, it won't be too late.

I agree with Mr Hitchens assessment of the Conservatives under David Cameron however I find the dismissal of the BNP as a viable alternative slightly harder to understand. It seems it is common knowledge that the BNP are wholly unacceptable, indeed this was reflected in a conversation I had with my recently retired brother. He informed me that he had carefully considered all the various political parties election literature posted through his letterbox apart from the BNP. That brochure had been torn up unread. While it is clearly unnecessary for my brother, perhaps for the benefit of people like me, Mr Hitchens might indicate which BNP manifesto policies are so abhorrent. Or perhaps it is not their policies but that the BNP are really just a bunch of racist thugs that put them beyond the pale? Because if policies no longer matter, but it is about the people themselves, perhaps Cameron's lot are not so bad. He does not seem to be a racist or a thug.

On the other hand Mr Cameron does seem to have supported the Labour parties appalling wars. Having seen uncensored photos of Iraqi children with their limbs blown off as a result of the war (something not shown in unedited form here in Britain), not to mention the steady stream of our injured and killed I am inclined to feel a little disgusted with Mr Cameron. I understand it is also the case that Cameron is associated with funding the Anti-Fascist League, know to be have been involved in a number of violent demonstrations. Hired boot boys no less.

So we have a strange situation in Britain whereby a large part of the population are prepared to vote for the political parties that took us to an unjustified and probably illegal war in Iraq that has resulted in the slaughter of thousands of innocents and hundreds of our own service personnel. Parties that have incumbent MPs caught filling their pockets while our underfunded troops die for no good reason. People are prepared to vote for these people that have brought our country so low. Yet the BNP are reviled, most recently for having the wrong type of number plates on some of their members cars. Worse than blowing the arms and legs off children perhaps?

I do not say that the BNP are not a bunch of racist thugs. Perhaps they are. All I say is that in comparison with the political parasites that have grown rich while destroying our country, and are spattered with the blood of thousands, perhaps our sense of what is truly bad has got lost somewhere. Am I wrong to think that theft and murder on an epic scale might be worse than grudgingly suppressed racism and thuggery? If in doubt why not vote UKIP?

Whether or not you consider I have a point, I congratulate Mr Hitchens for standing up for decency and traditional values; so rare in the media now.

Where do we go from here? More confused than ever with all of this political swashbuckling, its becoming more clear as the days go by that its all complete and utter nonsense and none of the potential contenders really deserve to lead the country. Can any of them lead us forward by setting a good old fashioned example? I dont think so, leading by example requires a certain amount of patience, humility, wisdom and love, sometimes tough love. Thats the kind of person i want to see in power, might stand myself !!!

Post a comment

Comments are moderated, and will not appear on this weblog until the moderator has approved them. They must not exceed 500 words. Web links cannot be accepted, and may mean your whole comment is not published.